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[Metroid] - I heard the next game is a monologue about misogyny. Oh wait.

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  • EnlongEnlong Registered User regular
    cloudeagle wrote: »
    Foefaller wrote: »
    So, I, uh, bought it last night.
    I did a bunch of googling, and it turns out that, while Gamestop has the most copies, they are the most reasonable. On eBay I saw one copy that had a week to go, but was $15 right now. I doubt it would last a week. A bunch of other places showed that it was going for $70-80. So I got it there, as well as a used WiiMote and Nunchuck. And I also scored an even bigger bounty! X-Men Destiny!

    So I'll give it a shot tonight.

    That... that was a joke, right?

    Either that or he's in for some massive disappointment.

    Bad game that sold awfully that had all the unsold copies destroyed so there are few in existence?! I'm thinking collector's item!!
    So hell yeah I got it! I'll bet my retirement on it, just like I did with bitcoins! What can go wrong?!

    That's not quite how it went. A judge ordered all unsold copies removed from shelves (and I think destroyed) because Silicon Knights turned out to have been in serious breach of contract over the engine they used.

    So the circumstances were a bit more severe than "it didn't sell well".

    Well, it also didn't sell well because it was an awful game. So there were few in the wild when the judgement was made.

    Anyway.

    Metroid! Good game, if you ignore the most recent ones.

    Most recent one.

    "Ones" includes Prime games in the list to be ignored.

  • SoundsPlushSoundsPlush yup, back. Registered User regular
    Ri1Y39U.jpg

    Yep, that looks like an callous psychopath whose only displays of "mercy" are actually her own caprices and not any sort of empathy that might even exceed the bird Buddhists that raised her, alright.

    That she follows her own moral compass and disobeys Federation orders is a good sign given what we know of the Federation, and it doesn't seem she's motivated by money considering there's never a sign of it and how aghast Nintendo was at their translation suggesting the idea of Samus actually catching bounties for pay.

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  • frenetic_ferretfrenetic_ferret wildest weasel East Coast is Best CoastRegistered User regular
    Oniros25 wrote: »
    chiasaur11 wrote: »
    Enlong wrote: »
    Shes clearly not a psychopath. Youre just pulling things out of your ass.

    Because a willingness to engage in assassination and genocide for money shows a good deal of empathy? And after that a willingness to throw your orders and agreements out the window because you want to take home something to amuse you shows a real value of agreements? That's pretty textbook psychopathic behavior.

    Just because she's a psychopath doesn't mean she isn't the heroine of the story. Hero's can be psychopaths or even totally insane, they can even accomplish great things for selfish or vile motivations. But Samus is clearly off in the head. Which isn't a huge thing, most video game protagonists are nutters if you actually look at them. Simon Belmont is also clearly nuts.

    Let's see. As for empathy.

    Well, all three Prime games show some.

    In Prime 1, she only really needed to take out the Pirate installation and murder Ridley again, but she chose to explore what happened to the planet and destroy the source of Phazon on it. Either out of a desire to prevent the planet from further damage, or to protect galactic society from Phazon. And maybe a personal stake, due to the presence of Chozo on the planet.

    In Prime 2, there was the "respectfully closing the corpse's eyes" bit, or similar, when she found what was left of Bravo Team. And, again, that's all she had to do. She didn't need to save the Luminoth as part of her mission, nor did she know there was Phazon to eliminate at the time.

    In Corruption, she seems to regard the other hunters as comrades. Her reaction to Dark Samus showing up around them is anger at what's happening to them.

    Also, there was her willingness to sacrifice herself in Fusion to protect the galaxy from the X, and her canonically saving the animals in Super.

    I kind of think that the games that could portray Samus as psychotic are outnumbered.

    We also get the information that Ghor, a fellow hunter, is known for donating all the cash he doesn't need to keep in the game to charities, when he isn't working for free. He's shown, until possessed by Dark Samus, to be a good guy.

    And he likes Samus.

    She's good at killing. She's on a revenge kick to the point she's the damn devil for Pirates. But sometimes people need killing. Don't need to be a psycho or a monster to do it, even if being able to kill without remorse puts someone out of the regular.

    There's a Lewis essay on the nature of civilization. Mostly, it's divided into two groups in an endless, miserable cycle. The meek, who are civilized and peaceful. And the barbarians who stomp their faces in, then get weak themselves to be replaced by new barbarians.

    Only there's a third thing. Knights. Unyielding in battle, the most lethal things to draw breath, but as gentle in peacetime as a newborn.

    Gotta say, Samus's armor looks pretty shiny.

    YUP!

    She spared the baby metroid at the end of 2 for crying out loud. No psychopath would do that. She'd put two in it's "head" and call that mission complete and then get wasted at the end of Super Metroid. Samus' compassion literally saves the day at the end of that game. Worst case scenario? Samus suffers from PTSD and/or suffers from survivor's guilt due to what happened to her family as a child, which could cause her to have a certain lack of disreguard for her own safty (going into impossible missions, escaping blowing up planets, generally being awesome) but she demonstratably even before the modern era cares about other sentient beings. Even metroids for crying out loud and they're the biggest threat the galaxy's ever seen.

    Also, Simon Belmont is only insane in the sense that he's willingly walking into Dracula's castle to put down a seemingly immortal vampire and one of the most henous monsters in history. When people say that people who do those kinds of things are "insane" what they actually mean is "unreasonablly brave" dude is a hero like no other. Pretty much all belmonts are (um, sans reboot I guess.)

    In the NES days, they paid so little attention to characterization other than trying to make the protagonist look either cute or badass. You could literally write any sort of personality onto old school Samus or Simon Belmont or whatever. I think this is probably kind of a rorschach test situation, where it says more about how the individual views the character than how the characters really are. I mean, how much do we really know about Link in the og LoZ? Maybe he's just trying to find the Triforce and princess so he can rule Hyrule himself as a tyranical dictator. Maybe he just really hates pigs. We don't know. I personally choose to believe these guys are all heroes myself because they face terrible evil when they don't actually have to with little in the way of personal motivators. Samus has more personal investment than some, but still in at least half the games, she's not even getting paid.

    An old woman (Impa IIRC) near death after being attacked ran up to Link and dragged him into the Zelda plot line. He didn't actually set out to do any of that, he's not an adult and an unwilling protagonist. Simon Belmont is a crazy man who lives out of town and is feared by normal humans just as much as the monsters. Samus is a contract killer willing to exterminate entire species and slaughter everything in her path. Psychopaths can do kind things if it suits or amuses them, that doesn't maker her less of a psychopath. Rather, since it involves rule/contract breaking simply because she wanted to it helps prove that she is one.

    Again though, it's not a bad thing. Virtually every video game protagonist from the 8/16 bit era falls somewhere on the DSIV scale or is utterly unhinged.

  • GethGeth Legion Perseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
    @frenetic_ferret, we do not comprehend the organic fascination of self-poisoning, auditory damage and sexually transmitted disease.
    Infracted @frenetic_ferret (2 points for 30 days) for "Disallowed phrase: Prohibited phrase "the baby""

    cB557DarkMecha
  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    Ahahahaha...

    Infracted via quote.

    @Geth shows no mercy. Or anything that could be spun as mercy.

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  • RockinXRockinX Registered User regular
    edited May 2014
    Ri1Y39U.jpg

    Yep, that looks like an callous psychopath whose only displays of "mercy" are actually her own caprices and not any sort of empathy that might even exceed the bird Buddhists that raised her, alright.

    That she follows her own moral compass and disobeys Federation orders is a good sign given what we know of the Federation, and it doesn't seem she's motivated by money considering there's never a sign of it and how aghast Nintendo was at their translation suggesting the idea of Samus actually catching bounties for pay.
    I don't know if that counts (even though the Zero Mission ending suggests it does) since it's outside of the games and Adam doesn't act like a huge jackass there. "Oh, you're sneaking out to investigate the sudden capture of Zebes by the pirates even though we ordered you to stay here? Ok, you have two days to come back."

    RockinX on
  • RockinXRockinX Registered User regular
    Why won't people refer to the then newborn Metroid as hatchling?

    Let's be honest, by now, the device that drove the plot of Super Metroid shouldn't even be considered an infant any longer. It was huge at the end of the game.

    BTW, the Japanese cartridge's label is technically a spoiler! http://www.metroid-database.com/sm/packs.php

  • EnlongEnlong Registered User regular
    RockinX wrote: »
    Ri1Y39U.jpg

    Yep, that looks like an callous psychopath whose only displays of "mercy" are actually her own caprices and not any sort of empathy that might even exceed the bird Buddhists that raised her, alright.

    That she follows her own moral compass and disobeys Federation orders is a good sign given what we know of the Federation, and it doesn't seem she's motivated by money considering there's never a sign of it and how aghast Nintendo was at their translation suggesting the idea of Samus actually catching bounties for pay.
    I don't know if that counts (even though the Zero Mission ending suggests it does) since it's outside of the games and Adam doesn't act like a huge jackass there. "Oh, you're sneaking out to investigate the sudden capture of Zebes by the pirates even though we ordered you to stay here? Ok, you have two days to come back."

    Think of it this way.

    It's more stuff that Other M can't be reconciled with.

    That game is seriously outnumbered.

    RockinX
  • RockinXRockinX Registered User regular
    edited May 2014
    Enlong wrote: »
    RockinX wrote: »
    Ri1Y39U.jpg

    Yep, that looks like an callous psychopath whose only displays of "mercy" are actually her own caprices and not any sort of empathy that might even exceed the bird Buddhists that raised her, alright.

    That she follows her own moral compass and disobeys Federation orders is a good sign given what we know of the Federation, and it doesn't seem she's motivated by money considering there's never a sign of it and how aghast Nintendo was at their translation suggesting the idea of Samus actually catching bounties for pay.
    I don't know if that counts (even though the Zero Mission ending suggests it does) since it's outside of the games and Adam doesn't act like a huge jackass there. "Oh, you're sneaking out to investigate the sudden capture of Zebes by the pirates even though we ordered you to stay here? Ok, you have two days to come back."

    Think of it this way.

    It's more stuff that Other M can't be reconciled with.

    That game is seriously outnumbered.
    But then characters like that annoying pointy-eared dude go on to become canon.

    RockinX on
  • L Ron HowardL Ron Howard The duck MinnesotaRegistered User regular
    Well, I'm thinking Fusion and Other M.

  • EnlongEnlong Registered User regular
    Well, I'm thinking Fusion and Other M.

    There were 3-5 games between those two.

  • L Ron HowardL Ron Howard The duck MinnesotaRegistered User regular
    I'm not checking the dates so sure, I'll agree.

  • Oniros25Oniros25 Registered User regular
    I didn't even notice I said it! -_-

    Guess I was just too excited to make my point.

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  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    Well, I'm thinking Fusion and Other M.

    In Fusion though, it's just a computer copy, and for 95% of the game it acts completely cold and computer-like. The fidelity is in question.

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  • DelzhandDelzhand Hard to miss. Registered User regular
    When you start talking about psychopathy in video games you're playing a very strange game. IRL, if you went into a rainforest and shot anything that moved, you'd probably be killing a lot of animals that weren't necessarily hostile. It's definitely animal cruelty. But in an NES games, what else is there to do? You need "bad guys", and the local fauna is really all you've got. Sure, you can say they're hostile, but Zoomers clearly aren't, and plenty of the other species are just sorta "there" or defending their territory.

    It doesn't mean Samus has mental issues, it means that videogames aren't representational of the real world and can't be made to be. So when you start applying real world diagnostic tools to people who literally only exist as a way for players to overcome challenges with force, I'm going to start looking at you funny.

    Note that this often doesn't apply in "story" segments, which is why Other M is still fair game for clinical diagnosis of the abusive relationship on display there, because the player isn't really free to make decisions there.

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  • JusticeforPlutoJusticeforPluto Registered User regular
    We could go all Spec Ops on this.

    Samus has no agency besides what the player decides. You killed that Zoomer family to get to the Missle Upgrade. Did you even try do avoid them?

    cB557L Ron HowardMrMiscreant
  • L Ron HowardL Ron Howard The duck MinnesotaRegistered User regular
    Call of Samus: Bright Purple Ops
    Mission: No Zoomer - Eliminate all innocent people zoomers in an airport underground cavern

  • ArteenArteen Adept ValeRegistered User regular
    edited May 2014
    We could go all Spec Ops on this.

    Samus has no agency besides what the player decides. You killed that Zoomer family to get to the Missle Upgrade. Did you even try do avoid them?
    Spec Ops spoilers
    Adam was dead the whole time. This is all your fault.

    Arteen on
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  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    We could go all Spec Ops on this.

    Samus has no agency besides what the player decides. You killed that Zoomer family to get to the Missle Upgrade. Did you even try do avoid them?
    Hell no.

    Suckers shouldn't have been moving around where I could see they were living things instead of rocks.

    And even rocks shouldn't feel very safe.

    cB557Stormwatcher
  • chiasaur11chiasaur11 Never doubt a raccoon. Do you think it's trademarked?Registered User regular
    We could go all Spec Ops on this.

    Samus has no agency besides what the player decides. You killed that Zoomer family to get to the Missle Upgrade. Did you even try do avoid them?
    Hell no.

    Suckers shouldn't have been moving around where I could see they were living things instead of rocks.

    And even rocks shouldn't feel very safe.

    And they dropped health!

    If they wanted to keep living, maybe they shouldn't be concealing mission essential resources!

    cB557
  • DrascinDrascin Registered User regular
    If they didn't cause damage on touch while being continuously on the way in narrow areas I actually probably wouldn't ever shoot them at all, personally.

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  • TommattTommatt Registered User regular
    So, the original default control scheme for Super Metroid. I can't believe this is a Nintendo game as they feel all wrong. I never realized it until the Angry Video Game Nerd pointed it out, but our fingers are used to certain buttons doing certain things.

  • RockinXRockinX Registered User regular
    I'm pretty sure I changed the control scheme.

  • DelzhandDelzhand Hard to miss. Registered User regular
    Tommatt wrote: »
    So, the original default control scheme for Super Metroid. I can't believe this is a Nintendo game as they feel all wrong. I never realized it until the Angry Video Game Nerd pointed it out, but our fingers are used to certain buttons doing certain things.

    I can't play it without remapping the controls.

    YukiraLBD_Nytetrayn
  • RockinXRockinX Registered User regular
    Not being able remap buttons is the reason why I never bought Kirby Super Star Ultra or Mario Kart DS. I'm too used to the YB control scheme.

  • ZxerolZxerol for the smaller pieces, my shovel wouldn't do so i took off my boot and used my shoeRegistered User regular
    Y/B shoot and jump, A run, and X select weapons. The default SM controls are whack.

    DelzhandAistan
  • TommattTommatt Registered User regular
    Ya I'm planning on remapping, awesome that that was a feature in a game when it wasn't common. Just was surprised as most Nintendo games feel very natural.

  • DelzhandDelzhand Hard to miss. Registered User regular
    I dunno, by the SNES era most games had some kind of control options.

    Somewhat unrelated, but y'know what's always messed me up? In Japan, O represents correct and X is wrong, so on PS controllers a lot of Japanese games circle is "accept", but in the US it's typically the bottom-most button.

  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    Delzhand wrote: »
    I dunno, by the SNES era most games had some kind of control options.

    Somewhat unrelated, but y'know what's always messed me up? In Japan, O represents correct and X is wrong, so on PS controllers a lot of Japanese games circle is "accept", but in the US it's typically the bottom-most button.

    Because that corresponds to A/B locations normally...

    And then you go play MGS and keep screwing up in menus the first hour.

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  • PrjctD_CaptainPrjctD_Captain iFizzRegistered User regular
    Polaritie wrote: »
    Delzhand wrote: »
    I dunno, by the SNES era most games had some kind of control options.

    Somewhat unrelated, but y'know what's always messed me up? In Japan, O represents correct and X is wrong, so on PS controllers a lot of Japanese games circle is "accept", but in the US it's typically the bottom-most button.

    Because that corresponds to A/B locations normally...

    And then you go play MGS FF 7 and keep screwing up in menus the first hour.

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  • LBD_NytetraynLBD_Nytetrayn TorontoRegistered User regular
    chiasaur11 wrote: »
    Captain N had a bit about Samus's past I liked.

    She joined the basic Federation patrol. Despite the grunt level name, they're badasses. One in a million. But even there she stood out. Got promoted to a Hunter.

    Semi-independent, so badass that only one in a million space cops can make the grade. Samus was the youngest being to make the jump.

    ...And then, after a few years, she decided "Fuck it. I'm freelancing."

    It does a nice job of saying "It's not that the Federation sucks. Samus is just that good."
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  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    I would prefer that Federation Uniform, silly pirate boots and all over the zero suit.

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  • skeldareskeldare Gresham, ORRegistered User regular
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  • L Ron HowardL Ron Howard The duck MinnesotaRegistered User regular
    I see your awesome and raise you with awful:

    http://www.amazon.com/Good-Smile-Metroid-Other-Figure/dp/B0070S54SS/

  • FawstFawst The road to awe.Registered User regular
    OK, that's scary. I literally just closed a tab with that awful Other M statue that I saw linked off a thinkgeek ad. The next tab in line was this one and the first link I clicked on was this.

    Is that a sign that I should buy it or something? I don't want it!

    cB557
  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    I've seen these types of figures before and I just cannot figure out how another human being can look at them and not go "statue of massively over-designed female character in ultra-skimpy or otherwise revealing outfit, complete with alluring pose? Yup, suuuuper creeepy."

    cB557Arteen
  • SoundsPlushSoundsPlush yup, back. Registered User regular
    That's why the Zero Suit exists.

    I have the Figma Varia suit figurine which is everything that isn't, i.e. good and not something that would be embarrassing to have on a shelf.

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  • L Ron HowardL Ron Howard The duck MinnesotaRegistered User regular
    I could see if you had a bunch of other Metroid stuff, that might be acceptable. But if it's on a shelf like by itself or with other questionably tasteful figurines, then yeah, the creep factor goes way up. Like, I would get that if I were completing a set and had a bunch of the other Metroid stuff first.

  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    edited May 2014
    That Varia suit one is totally awesome, no doubt.

    Ninja Snarl P on
  • ElbasunuElbasunu Registered User regular
    I know a fair number of people who bought the ZSS PVC figure because it came with a metroid that worked well with the FIGMA Varia Suit.

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